


attract and repel

by unsungillumination



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Glenn Fraldarius Lives, M/M, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:27:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21872947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsungillumination/pseuds/unsungillumination
Summary: a force of nature, caused by the unique properties of certain entities.a modern au where glenn does not die, dimitri and felix fall out and come back together, and some things change but others are always the same.(written for the 2019 dimilix holiday exchange!)
Relationships: Dimitri & Sylvain (brief), Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Glenn Fraldarius, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Felix & Annette (brief), Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Glenn Fraldarius, Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Glenn/Ingrid (background)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 286
Collections: 2019 Dimilix Holiday Exchange





	1. PART ONE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Rennae. Happy holidays! I truly hope you enjoy this!
> 
> Prompt: “Glenn does not die and is instead here to witness the Trainwreck between his baby brother and His Highness... What happens next will shock you. (could be in canon setting or modern au)”  
> Well, what happened next was I sat down to write 1000 words as per the Exchange guidelines and wound up with 17k. So, yeah. You could say I was pretty shocked.
> 
>  **Heads up:** A character in this fic uses a wheelchair. I’m not a wheelchair user myself, so I have done my best, but I acknowledge there may be inaccuracies—please correct me (politely) if I’ve used the wrong language or otherwise been insensitive. I promise that was not my intention and I’m more than happy to fix any mistakes I’ve made. The same applies to issues of mental health—please keep in mind that I am not a professional and can only do my best!
> 
>  **Content warnings:** Mental illness and trauma (particularly in chapter 2), potentially insensitive language towards mental illness and disability (canon-typical Felixisms, I think), a LOT of swearing due to Fraldariuses. Please use discretion when reading!

Felix wakes up with a pounding headache and way too many fucking texts from Glenn, because Felix has always been an unfortunate lightweight and Glenn has always been an annoying piece of shit.

> **Glenn:** pick up your phone

Felix puts down his phone. Too bright. Someone had had the presence of mind to close the curtains when they dumped him in bed—probably Sylvain, who is occasionally good for something—so the room is still blessedly dark. An aspirin has been left on his bedside table along with a glass of water, both of which he knocks back before he drags himself out of bed and trudges into the hall.

Sylvain has been considerate enough to keep the lights dim in the rest of their apartment and is not blaring his godawful pop music the way he usually does in the mornings, which Felix appreciates. He is also making pancakes and atrociously strong coffee.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he says when he sees Felix, and all Felix’s newly-won fondness toward Sylvain dissipates immediately. Sylvain is smirking, because Sylvain suffers some deeply ingrained medical defect or something that means he is always smirking, and in addition always has to look like a total douche who’s never met a shirt in his life. But Sylvain is also handing over a cup of coffee and a plate of pancakes, which admittedly are always to die for, so Felix curbs his tongue and reaches for a fork.

“Thanks,” he says grudgingly.

“No problem-o. Thought you might have learned your lesson by now, dude.”

“I only had three drinks.”

“Yeah, that’s the sad part,” says Sylvain. Felix throws a blueberry at him but Sylvain just catches it in his mouth and munches thoughtfully. “I’m not complaining. You’re hilarious when you’re drunk.”

“Save it,” Felix growls, extremely unwilling to hear about whatever the hell he said-slash-did last night. He drains half his coffee in one gulp and feels a new spike of rage at the world in general when it does not make his headache instantly ebb. “Glenn won’t leave me the fuck alone for I don’t know what-the-fuck what, I don’t need shit from you.”

Felix’s phone chimes again, on cue. “That him?” Sylvain asks. “You could maybe read his texts. Solve the mystery.” He laughs when Felix glares at him. “Okay. My bad for telling you to read.”

Felix grunts and shovels more pancake into his mouth.

Sylvain grabs Felix’s cell off the table and lets himself in, and Felix lacks the energy and the reflexes to do anything about it right now, so he mournfully laps at the last dregs of his coffee and accepts the shitty hand life has dealt him. Giving Sylvain his passcode is one of the dumber things he’s done and yet he’s let several months go by without changing it, only made Sylvain swear not to put anything funky in his search history (“I won’t, dude, I know how to use incognito—” and received a bruise to the shin) or use his camera to take—pictures. (Sylvain had not actually sworn anything to this effect until Felix had made some snide remark about his phone not having a good enough macro function for his purposes and Sylvain had been so offended that Felix figured it probably counted.)

Sylvain scrolls idly through his texts and then says, “Dimitri.”

“What?”

“He’s asking about Dimitri.”

Felix frowns. “What about him? I didn’t even talk to him.” Hazy as his memories are from the previous night, he knows for a fact that he never went near the boar, owing mostly to the fact that Dimitri himself always avoided Felix almost as much as Felix avoided him.

“That’s what he’s asking about,” Sylvain says. “He wants to know why you two don’t talk anymore.”

“And that warrants five hundred texts? Seiros.” Felix snorts and pushes his empty plate away, which Sylvain dutifully takes and puts in the sink to not-wash and make Felix do it later. “He’s an idiot.”

“He’s not _wrong_ , though,” Sylvain informs him. “A little behind the times, maybe.”

“We don’t talk much.” He and Glenn aren’t close, not really. They’re not… _not_ close, they just don’t speak as much as they used to. Glenn is tighter with their father, which means Felix keeps his distance—and besides, Glenn’s been busier than ever as of late due to his recent engagement. “What’s the big deal. It’s none of his business.” _It’s none of yours, either_ , he thinks but does not say, mostly because it’s not fully true. Sylvain, after all, is friends with Dimitri just the same as Felix had been.

Well, not the same. Nobody had ever been friends with Dimitri the way Felix was.

Sylvain shrugs. “Can’t blame him for being curious. You and _Diimaa_ ”—he pitches and drags the word the way he insists Felix used to, the way Felix vehemently denies he ever did—“used to be inseparable, and now you never talk. And you were outright hostile last night.”

“Was I?” Felix asks idly. “Good. Glad alcohol doesn’t make me someone I’m not.” Sylvain frowns at him, so he sighs. “I don’t know what the big deal is.”

“Hey, it’s not my problem,” Sylvain says.

“Great. Then act like it.”

“It’s just sad,” Sylvain continues, which makes Felix groan and drop his head. “I mean, what _happened_ with you guys?”

“Again, not your problem.” Felix has never really talked about this with Sylvain and he hasn’t really figured out if that’s fair or not, even while he watched Sylvain pretend not to ask for months on end. It’s _not_ Sylvain’s business, strictly speaking, but Sylvain and Dimitri _are_ still friends, and it’s hard to avoid a little overlap.

“You kinda made it my problem last night,” Sylvain says, which makes Felix stiffen and Sylvain immediately leap to damage control. “Relax. I didn’t actually get anything from it. You just mumbled a bunch of nonsense while I was dragging you into bed and sniffled a bit and his name came up like, seven times. So spill the tea, sis—what were you trying to say?”

“Shut up,” Felix says automatically, reeling a bit. What the fuck had he said?

“Come on, tell me what happened with you guys, I just want to—”

“Just drop it,” Felix advises shortly, so Sylvain does. Whatever else is to be said about him, Sylvain has always known Felix too well, and it’s as much a blessing as it is a curse.

Maybe that’s what makes Felix sigh and keep talking. “You know. From what happened a few years ago.”

“Gonna have to be more specific,” Sylvain says lightly, so Felix knows he knows.

“When Dimitri lost his parents,” he says anyway, “and Glenn—you know.” It’s not that he doesn’t want to say it, he just doesn’t know how. And Glenn got stuck in that wheelchair. And Glenn almost died from the same knife that killed Dimitri’s parents, the one that would have gotten Dimitri too had Glenn not thrown himself spine-first in front of it. Felix never bothered to read up on it all the way Rodrigue had obsessively done or Dimitri had even more obsessively and less productively done, so he doesn’t know the terminology. Not that Glenn necessarily gives a fuck about sensitivity, but it still feels kind of weird.

Sylvain doesn’t say anything. His expression is still light, but the whimsy is gone. Colder, harder Sylvain is a more serious contender, and Felix doesn’t know which one he prefers dealing with, but at the very least he always knows Sylvain is listening.

“It’s just weird,” he says, instead of trying to put words to any of the shit swirling in his head. He’s tried, before. Saw a therapist for a few months and got so fucking tired of it he just didn’t bother going back. “You know what he’s like.”

“Dimitri or Glenn?”

“The boar. He got this whole… complex about it.” Felix always forgets that Sylvain was not really there for the worst of the fallout. Old family friends didn’t really paint the whole picture; the Fraldariuses and the Blaiddyds had always been weirdly, inexorably intertwined, all twisted up together and ensnaring them all in its confused mess, made all the worse when Glenn did the _thing_ that Rodrigue still kind of hero-worships him for. Felix reckons Rodrigue forgets which family he’s a part of, Glenn reckons Felix is a dick for saying so. Family matters and all that. Sylvain (luckily, unluckily) was spared all that, but Sylvain (just unluckily) is a gossipy bitch. “About what Glenn did, I mean.”

“Ah,” says Sylvain, nodding knowledgably. “Guilt.” He pauses. “Never met her.”

“It’s just this madness he got,” Felix spits. “He got all in his head about it, about how it was all his fault, or whatever. And he—” Felix stops.

Sylvain doesn’t press him to continue, which is good, because again, Felix doesn’t know how. There’s no way to explain whatever the fuck is happening inside Dimitri’s head, because it doesn’t make sense to anyone with half a fucking functioning brain.

(Voice in his head which sounds suspiciously like his abandoned therapist: “Do you think, perhaps, the love and concern you have for people manifests as aggression because you’re not quite sure how to process it?” Felix tells the voice to fuck off, much like he did his actual therapist, which had made her cluck and give him a look like _case in point_.)

What he _does_ know makes very little sense as it is. The thing had happened, and Dimitri had been a wreck, and then Felix had thought things would kind of go back to normal after Glenn had returned from the hospital.

They had not.

What had happened instead: Felix had reached out for Dimitri, his _best friend_ in all the world and the _only one_ who might possibly understand even a smidgeon of what he was going through and be understood in return, during arguably the most difficult time of their lives. Reached for him, seeking comfort just as he sought to give it, the two of them, who had thought always to be together, and Dimitri had pulled away. Further and further and further away.

“You’re right,” Felix says softly. “We used to be close.”

This, now, is one of the things Felix likes most about Sylvain—the total lack of pity in the way Sylvain looks at him now. Just understanding, serious and weighted and not a shade too cool.

Then Sylvain yawns, _wide_. “You know, you’re really heavy,” he remarks conversationally. “I had to drag you all the way home and up to bed last night, you know that? You’re so fucking skinny too. Where are you hiding all that weight?”

Felix snorts, moment broken. “Maybe you just need to work out more, you useless piece of shit.”

“You’re _welcome_ ,” Sylvain drawls.

“Yeah, whatever,” Felix says, almost grinning, and then the intercom buzzes and Sylvain drops his ladle into the pancake mix and it splatters onto Felix’s face.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Felix yells at the same time as Sylvain says, “Shit, sorry,” and really this is on both of them because the intercom has been way too loud since they moved in but neither of them has done a thing to fix it. It goes off again and Felix jumps up and jams his finger into the call button, wincing at the buzz thrumming through his _still-present headache_ and then fucking _Glenn’s_ voice rings out into the apartment.

“ _Felix? You there?_ ”

“Who,” says Felix, “the _hell_ , _else_ , would be here, this is my _fucking apartment_.”

“ _Then let me up_ ,” comes Glenn’s dry reply, “ _and one of you come down and get me. Who the_ fuck _installs a lift in the lobby and puts it up a set of fucking stairs?_ ”

“It’s literally two steps,” Felix says but Sylvain is grabbing his keys and laughing. “Sylvain’s coming.”

“Sit tight,” Sylvain calls from the door, and Glenn snorts and hangs up.

When Sylvain reappears with Glenn in tow (Glenn in… push) a few minutes later, Felix is helping himself to another batch of pancakes which are edible but not nearly as neat as they are when Sylvain makes them, and the kitchen bench is still splattered with drying batter because as far as he’s concerned that was Sylvain’s mess and he’ll be damned if he has to clean it.

“What’s up, asshole,” says Glenn.

“Fuck off,” Felix requests calmly.

“Ah, family,” Sylvain muses fondly. “Makes me wish I had a brother.” Glenn laughs but Felix just manages not to wince. Miklan’s excommunication was a long time coming but still probably a little rawer than Sylvain lets on. Sylvain presses on, thankfully, because their kitchen just is not big enough for all the fucked-up family issues they’ve got going on between the three of them. “What brings you here, Glenn?”

“My dear little brother,” says Glenn, reaching out to snatch a pancake off Felix’s plate which Felix only half-heartedly tries to save, “has been ignoring my texts."

“Funny,” says Felix. “Usually that means I don’t want to talk to someone.”

“That _is_ funny,” Glenn agrees, wheeling himself into the living room and planting himself there. “So let’s talk, little bro.”

“Call the police,” Felix tells Sylvain. “A man has just been wheeled out a tenth-storey window.”

Glenn laughs again. “Sorry we didn’t get to talk much at the party last night, Felix—but you weren’t really up to talking much anyway, huh?”

“Yeah,” says Felix flatly. “And I’m not up to it now, either. Sorry. Headache. I’m going out for a run.”

“Aw, c’mon, Felix,” Sylvain says earnestly, but Felix is already shoving his keys into his pocket and making for the door. He sees Glenn go for his pancakes again as he leaves, looking way too smug for comfort.

* * *

> **Felix:** can you not control your man
> 
> **Ingrid:** Sorry. I told him not to go.
> 
> **Felix:** ugh. whatever.
> 
> **Ingrid:** I take it you’re not talking to him.
> 
> **Ingrid:** I told him this would happen.
> 
> **Felix:** i went out.
> 
> **Ingrid:** Is he still at your place?
> 
> **Felix:** sylvains watching him
> 
> **Ingrid:** Is that safe?
> 
> **Felix:** not for the apartment. last time he tried to show off his new trick shots and crashed into the tv cabinet.
> 
> **Ingrid:** Ah.
> 
> **Ingrid:** Are you out running? Can I join you?
> 
> **Felix:** yeah usual route. meet you at the park
> 
> **Ingrid:** Let’s get bagels!
> 
> **Felix:** it’s always food with you

Ingrid is usually good company and she’s in especially high spirits when she shows off her new engagement ring—not fancy, she informs Felix happily, because he can’t tell the difference, but elegant and practical and just what she likes. Glenn really knows her.

“Great,” says Felix. And then again, more sincerely: “That’s really great, Ingrid. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” says Ingrid, a little pink. “I’m sorry he came to bother you. I tried to talk him out of it.”

“Not your fault,” Felix says, resigned.

They start off toward the second half of their usual track. Felix usually prefers to run in silence, and he knows Ingrid knows this, but he _also_ knows that Ingrid knows he’s stewing today. Which is why he’s not surprised when _Ingrid_ does not look surprised when he finally huffs and says, “Why’s he so stuck on the boar?”

“Glenn?” Ingrid asks. “I think he feels bad.”

Felix groans. “Why does _everyone_ have some stupid guilt complex?”

Ingrid half-laughs, half-scowls. “Felix, you can’t blame them. Dimitri still thinks what happened is his fault. And Glenn worries about you, you know. You never seem happy these days.”

“I’m happy,” says Felix, and gives up at the look Ingrid levels at her. “Just because I’m always frowning doesn’t mean I’m not happy.”

“I’m not qualified to unpack that,” she says.

They round the corner. “What does Glenn have to feel bad about?”

Ingrid is quiet for a second. “I don’t know,” she admits finally, “but I think part of him might think it’s his fault that Dimitri’s so…”

“Crazy,” says Felix.

“Felix,” Ingrid admonishes.

“What? It’s true.” Felix shakes his head, annoyed. “How is it _his_ fault?”

“Seeing the way you two were at the party last night upset him,” Ingrid says gently. “I think he suspects that what happened drove a wedge between Dimitri and you.”

“Yeah, but that’s not _his_ fault.”

“I know it’s not,” says Ingrid.

“Does _he_?”

“I… think so?” she says, which does not inspire much confidence. “Probably? But of course he’s going to worry, Felix. You and Dimitri mean the world to him. He wants you to be happy.”

“He could start by not showing up at my fucking house,” Felix grumbles, and Ingrid laughs. “Do you have aspirin.”

Ingrid digs in her waist pack and withdraws a slightly-crumpled but intact thing of pills. “I thought you learned your lesson about drinking.”

“I didn’t think three drinks was going to do anything,” Felix says, annoyed. “I think my tolerance gets worse the more I actively don’t drink.”

“Well, don’t go trying to improve it,” says Ingrid. “You don’t need alcohol to have fun.”

“But you do need Ingrid to kill it,” says Felix, and dry-swallows the pills. “Thanks.”

Ingrid rolls her eyes. “I need better friends.”

* * *

When Felix returns to his apartment, Glenn is _still there_. He’s got his head in the fridge.

“You live with _Ingrid_ ,” Felix tells him, closing the door behind him. “How are you still hungry?”

“Yeah,” says Glenn, sticking his head over the fridge door. “I live with Ingrid. She’s always taking my food.”

Felix snorts. “I can’t believe she wants it. You eat like shit.”

“Match made in heaven,” says Glenn, shoving another spoon of peanut butter in his mouth. “Sylvain went to work. So it’s just you and me, little brother.”

“I wish you were dead.”

“Love you, too. Walk with me.” Glenn gestures with the peanut butter and Felix, instilled with the duty and loyalty of the Fraldarius name, glumly flips him off before opening the door and following Glenn out into the hallway.

“You’re not going to make a habit of crashing my apartment every time I drink, are you?” Felix grouses as they wait for the lift. “It’s stupidly unnecessary.”

“You’re unnecessary. No, brother mine, this is not about your pathetic alcohol tolerance, although, seriously,” Glenn wrinkles his nose up at Felix, “what did you have, two beers?”

“And a cider,” Felix mutters, like this helps.

Glenn mumbles something like _oy vey_ under his breath and says, “Your drinking habits are none of my business, and I sincerely hope they remain that way. I wanted to ask about Dimitri.”

“Oh, did you,” says Felix flatly. “Your billion texts didn’t tip me off.”

“I thought you didn’t _read_ those.”

“Sylvain read them. By the way, you’re a dick.”

“That your official reply?” Glenn shakes his head. “You swear too fucking much.”

“Yeah, I had a shitty fucking role model.” The elevator dings open before he’s finished speaking and a family of four frowns at him as they exit. Felix ignores them.

“Stop dodging the question,” Glenn says, getting in the way and running over Felix’s foot on purpose. “What the hell _happened_ with you and Dimitri?”

“It’s not my fault you haven’t kept up,” Felix says, instead of answering. “We haven’t been talking for ages.”

Glenn frowns. “But—”

“A lot happened while you’ve been off with our dear father,” Felix snaps. “Like I realised my life is none of your business.”

“What the fuck,” Glenn says, flaring up at once. “Felix, it’s not my fucking fault you _refuse_ to talk to Dad.”

“Nothing’s your fucking fault according to him.”

“Well, what’s my fault according to _you_?” Glenn demands.

“Nothing,” Felix says through gritted teeth. “Forget it.”

“Fucking tell me why you’re so fucking angry!”

“Oh, _sure_ , _I’m_ the _fucking angry_ _one,_ ” Felix yells, and whirls on the elevator panel because why is it taking so fucking long to get to the ground floor and as it turns out it’s because neither of them actually pressed the button.

He slams his fist on L for Lobby and sulks.

When Glenn speaks again, when the doors open and they head out into the lobby, his voice is the practiced sort of even that makes Felix seethe, not least because he himself never really got the hang of that. “Felix, if you have a hatchet to bury here, just tell me what it is.”

“I’m not angry,” Felix says.

“Right.”

“I’m not.” He’s not lying. There’s nothing he blames Glenn for. Just lingering bitterness which, if he’s being completely honest with himself, has barely anything to do with Glenn himself. “Dad thinks you’re some kind of superhero,” he blurts, “and he doesn’t see how stupid and dangerous that is because you never do anything _wrong_ to make him realise.”

He is not looking at Glenn because Felix has never been particularly good at the whole eye-contact thing, but when Glenn says, “Seriously?” in kind of a weird and quiet voice, Felix does actually look around, and Glenn’s eyes are kind of wide.

“Yeah,” says Felix, immediately looking away again. “That’s why I _refuse to talk to him_ or whatever. He won’t listen to reason.”

“And you’re reason, are you,” Glenn deadpans. “Seiros, we’re all fucked.”

“I’m _reasonable_.”

“You’re a bottle rocket wrapped in tinfoil someone jammed into a microwave.” Before Felix can blow up about this and absolutely prove his point, Glenn laughs. “But yeah, you are reasonable. Felix, are you _jealous_ of me?”

“ _No_ ,” Felix snaps, seething again, because leave it to Glenn to _completely misunderstand_ the honest feelings he shared out of the goodness of his pure fucking heart. “I—what were we fucking talking about. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Aww, Lixie,” Glenn says, so Felix punches him in the shoulder and earns a dirty look from a passer-by who knows only that Felix just punched a man in a wheelchair and _not_ that said man is a fucking asshole. “Why can’t we just bond like normal brothers.”

“Because you are a fucking asshole,” Felix informs him, so Glenn laughs and punches him in the stomach.

“So. Dimitri,” Glenn says, while Felix is pretending that did not actually kind of knock the wind out of him because Glenn has unfairly strong arms. “Tell me what I missed while you were off having a brother complex.” Then immediately heads off Felix with: “While you were off having _perfectly reasonable concerns_ , pardon me.”

Felix, failing not to pout, says, “There’s nothing to tell, and eat shit.”

“Yes, there fucking is,” says Glenn, as always lacking the patience for Felix’s shit. “To hear him tell it, there’s nothing wrong with the two of you, so why wouldn’t you even go near each other last night? Oh, sorry—you went near him _once_ to snap at him, and I quote, ‘Don’t come near me, you’ll track boar prints on my aura.’”

Felix wrinkles his nose. “I said ‘aura’?”

“You are a weird drunk.”

“I don’t even know what an aura is,” says Felix.

“Felix! Why does Dimitri make it sound like nothing’s different when you clearly—”

“Because Dimitri is a fucking liar and a coward,” Felix grits out, knowing this is not true even as he says it. Dimitri is _not_ a liar, at least not by anything but omission, but Felix has little doubt Dimitri has been conveniently speaking non-information, i.e. _not_ telling Glenn that he and Felix are no longer—ah— _acquainted_ , and letting Glenn assume the rest. And to what end?

Glenn answers the thought, though Felix didn’t need him to. “Dimitri is a giant soft-hearted Labrador puppy.”

“Prick,” Felix mutters. No doubt Dimitri hadn’t wanted to upset Glenn with the information, so he left it out. Typical of Dimitri to prioritise everyone’s feelings. Except Felix’s.

What Felix actually says: “We’re not talking. Things were weird after his parents died. We tried to keep in touch.” Not true. _Felix_ tried to keep in touch and Dimitri made about an equal an effort in reaching out as a limp noodle, then shrank to clearly pulling further and further away until Felix’s hurt was too much to pretend away, even for as much as he’d _needed_ Dimitri back then. “Then we had a fight. That’s it.”

That was not it. The ‘fight’ had not so much been mutual screaming as it had been Felix, hurt and betrayed and entirely too messed up inside and also too who-Felix-is-as-a-person to fully comprehend and accept what the hell was going on in Dimitri’s brain, screaming at Dimitri. Felix, demanding either an explanation or for Dimitri to fuck off, and Dimitri sadly fucking off.

That’s also still not it. Unbeknownst to Glenn, unbeknownst to Sylvain, to anyone else at all, Dimitri had not simply been Felix’s friend. The word was never big enough for them.

Felix shakes his head. It hasn’t been the time to think about that for a good couple of years, and it certainly isn’t the time now.

“Why’d it get weird?” asks Glenn, frowning.

“He thinks it’s his fault you got hurt,” Felix says. “I don’t know anything else.” Glenn is frowning harder and he looks like he’s about to say something, so Felix adds, “Why don’t you ask _him_? Hell if I know what’s going on in the brain of a madman. Then you can give him your defences and he won’t listen and I can be free of your bullshit, at least.”

“ _My_ bullshit? Felix, cut _yours_. You miss him, I can tell you miss him.”

“You don’t know a single fucking thing about me,” Felix hisses.

“And that’s my fault, along with everything else,” Glenn says drily.

“ _I never said_ —”

“You _clearly_ blame me for this,” says Glenn, still frowning.

“You’re projecting.”

“ _Projecting_?”

“Ingrid told me,” Felix says. “She said you think it’s your fault Dimitri’s like this.”

“Like what,” says Glenn.

Felix glares at him.

Glenn gives up. “Okay. I can’t say I haven’t thought it. But I am _not_ going to blame myself, and it’s not fair for _you_ to blame me, either.”

“Are you _deaf_? I fucking never said I blamed—”

“But you _clearly do_ ,” Glenn retorts. “And that’s not fucking fair, Felix, I am _not_ going to regret saving Dimitri, no matter what came out of it. No matter what he thinks. I know you don’t regret it, either.”

“Of course I don’t,” Felix says, stung. “What’s wrong with you? Why would I—”

“And I _know you miss him_ ,” says Glenn stubbornly, “so why the fuck did you cut him off?”

“If you’re so fucking observant, you should have noticed he avoided me just as much as I avoided him,” Felix says, kicking a rock and stubbing his toe. Glenn opens his mouth. “Shut up. No, it’s not because of _me_. He was doing that long before we had that fight.”

Felix must look downcast now because Glenn shuts his mouth and looks kind of concerned, which is worse, and only makes Felix angry again.

“I know you think I’m just avoiding something here, but I’m not,” Felix says to the floor. “I don’t know what I’d even do. Even if I wanted anything to do with him again.”

“Which you do.”

“I’m going to break a chair over your head,” Felix informs him.

Glenn holds up his hands. “Look,” he says, “I get it hurt you,” and damn it, because Glenn always picks up on exactly what Felix does not tell him, “but he needs you, even if he thinks he doesn’t.”

“You sound like Dad,” Felix says, bitterly, without thinking. “Dimitri first, as always.”

“I am _not_ saying that and neither is Dad,” Glenn says fiercely. “Felix, do you hear yourself? He needs you as much as you need him—and I’m saying you _need him to need you_ , so just shut the fuck up and stop acting like a stupid kid, would you?”

Felix actually does go to deck him this time but stops short. Glenn doesn’t flinch.

“Talk to Dimitri,” he says calmly. “No one can make him but you.”

“You could,” Felix says. “He’s still friends with you.”

Glenn snorts. “ _Me_? _I_ can’t. Great idea, little bro, send the source of his fucking guilt complex. Besides, whatever he’s got going on with you is a whole separate can of shitty worms I’m not qualified to deal with.”

“It’s _not_ separate. It’s about _you_.”

“Yes, it fucking is separate, because it’s just as much about you,” says Glenn, scowling again, “and how Dimitri apparently fucking thinks he doesn’t deserve to be happy with you.”

Felix actually doesn’t know what to say to that.

“Don’t you also kind of think that?” Glenn asks him.

“That he doesn’t deserve to be _happy_?”

“No, that you don’t,” says Glenn, “but you know what, maybe him too. C’mon, kid, you’re a bitter little thing, just like always.”

“You’re shorter than me,” Felix says automatically, which makes Glenn crack up. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Fine,” says Glenn. “Don’t talk to me, your beloved brother.” He dodges the half-hearted kick Felix aims at his wheel. “Talk to your beloved Dima instead.”

Felix growls and stalks off, but Glenn trails him, snickering. “You get engaged one time and you think you know so fucking much about relationships,” Felix tells him grumpily.

“Little bro, if I got engaged more than one time, I’d be less confident.”

Felix grunts.

“Ingrid showed me her ring,” he says grudgingly. “She loves it. Said it’s practical.”

Glenn glows. “I spent ages picking it out,” he says proudly, getting a soppy look in his eyes. Felix pretends to retch. “Hey, I didn’t ask, but you’ll be best man, right?”

Felix grunts again. “Yeah, whatever,” he says, looking away so Glenn won’t see the pink on his face, but a grinning Glenn slaps him on the back anyway. “Are you finally going to fuck off? I want to go home.” ‘Home’ is really just taking the elevator back upstairs because they got too distracted to actually leave the lobby, but fuck if Felix isn’t going to make as big a deal out of this as possible.

Glenn laughs at him. “Yeah, sure, whatever,” he says. “Hey, you’re out of peanut butter, by the way.”

“You are a piece of shit. I am not helping you down the stairs.” Again, it’s two steps, but Felix needs this.

“Fine,” Glenn says mournfully. “I’ll just bump down the stairs and die.”

“Okay. You do that.” Glenn has successfully and ill-advisedly navigated many more stairs than this. Being a bitch simply runs in the Fraldarius bloodline, just as much as being the Blaiddyds’ bitch seems to.

* * *

There is only one thing Felix knows how to do when he feels as helpless as he does now, so he dials Annette.

“ _Felix!_ ”

She’s in the middle of moving into her own place so he’s not surprised to hear a small crash and a tinny squeak on the other end—no doubt she’s carrying a way-too-tall stack of boxes while balancing the phone on her shoulder. Too busy to get smoothies with him while he doesn’t gripe and she chatters helpfully to fill his stewing. He changes ear and grunts, “Do you need help with your bookcase.”

“ _Huh? No, I’m fine! I can do it!_ ”

“Do you know how to use a drill yet,” he says.

Telling pause. “ _I’m gonna learn, there’s a booklet_ —”

“Annette. Please can I come over to build your bookcase?”

“ _Oh!_ ” Another beat, while Annette clearly figures out he’s actually asking her a favour and not offering one. “ _Yeah! I’m home right now._ ”

“I know,” he tells her, unable to not smile at the very idea of her. “I’m on my way.”

They don’t talk about Glenn, or Dimitri, or anything like that, and that’s one of the many reasons Felix likes Annette so very much: she doesn’t need to try and help him to make him feel better. Felix helps build her bookcase with pieced together brought-home information from Sylvain’s day job as a carpenter and Annette’s devoted poring over every available instruction manual and the end result is only a tiny bit wonky, and passably good looking, and secure enough not to fall on anyone’s head. She sings absently as she dusts over the knick-knacks he stacks carefully on her shelves and he doesn’t tell her, because then she’d stop.

Then she unpacks enough utensils to bake him the least sweet lemon slice she can possibly manage even though his preferred tartness makes her splutter over the curd and he moves boxes and relishes in being the tallest person in the room.

The sky has darkened when he finally leaves, but his mood has lightened considerably; it’s going on nightfall already when he’s bundled out with too much lemon slice, covered in dust, a kiss pressed to his cheek and a promise to make a lunch date tomorrow. Thank the goddess for Annette, he thinks, not for the first time—the day is saved.

Then it’s promptly ruined again.

* * *

Sylvain is home when Felix gets back, tired as hell and gearing up for job number two by eating all Felix’s protein bars instead of cooking real food. Felix shoves him out of the kitchen without a word and starts making spaghetti.

“You look happy,” Sylvain says conversationally, lounging over the sofa and still eating Felix’s protein bars. “I’m _guessing_ you didn’t get laid today, so you must have hung out with Annette?”

“Built her bookcase.” Felix does not mention that she had to bandage his hand up a couple of times because he kept splintering things.

“Look at you.” Sylvain looks impressed, though it’s hard to tell with Sylvain if he’s ever being sincere. “How’s she doing? Ohh, are those her famous lemon slices?”

“Too sour for you.”

“Try me,” Sylvain says, abandoning the protein bar and popping a slice in his mouth. He makes a face, all puckered up and reeling. “It’s like _eating_ a lemon!”

“It’s _lemon_ slice,” Felix reminds him, grabbing one for himself before shoving Sylvain’s face away. “Stop eating, I’m cooking.”

“So cruel…” Sylvain gulps down the rest of the slice anyway and sprawls back on the couch. “Hey, so, a friend’s coming over in a bit.”

Felix frowns. “Don’t you have work tonight?”

“Okay,” Sylvain amends, “a mutual friend, so I guess you’re gonna have to play host for a bit?”

“What,” says Felix, then the intercom chimes again and Felix manages not to jump but Sylvain does not. “ _Sylvain_.”

“I told him to text first,” Sylvain mutters, but hops up to answer. “Yo. Silence if that’s you.”

Silence.

“I feel like you don’t grasp what security is for,” Felix comments drily while Sylvain buzzes the visitor in. Sylvain just grins at him and swipes his finger through the jar of pasta sauce.

Minutes later, Sylvain opens the door, and Felix drops his wooden spoon and gets pasta sauce all over the kitchen backsplash.

“Sorry to intrude,” Dimitri says, in the low voice he’s favoured in recent years. “May I come in?”

No. No, no. No you may not.

“I invited _you_ , dude,” says Sylvain, slapping Dimitri’s back and stepping aside. “Hey, Fe, got enough for three?”

“No,” says Felix.

“That’s cool. I’m heading out anyway, save me some of yours. You kids have fun now—ciao.” When did Sylvain grab his bag? Before Felix can reach out and strangle him with it, he’s winking at Felix and heading out.

“Wait,” says Dimitri, looking about as alarmed as Felix feels, but he’s talking to a closed door.

He and Felix look at each other.

Felix turns off the burner. “I’m leaving,” he says shortly. “You better be gone when I’m back.”

Leaving his half-cooked pasta on the stove, Felix snatches up his gym bag and storms out, chased out of his own apartment by an unwelcome guest for the second _fucking_ time in a day. Dimitri’s still looking utterly lost and bewildered when the door shuts on him, so it’s a good job Felix is on the other side of it—he’s hated that look since they were seventeen and Dimitri wore it while he forgot how to be Felix’s friend.

* * *

Things Felix should have learned by now, having lived with Sylvain as long as he has: old dogs don’t need new tricks.

Dimitri is still standing uncomfortably in their apartment a half hour later when Felix returns, hair damp from the gym showers and muscles sore from the hour-long regimen he’d crammed into the half.

“Sylvain told me not to leave,” Dimitri says as soon as he sees Felix, like he’s been anxious to offer an explanation since he was left alone, which Felix believes. Whatever else left Dimitri when his parents did, his fucking manners had not been a victim. “I’m sorry to intrude.”

He’s gotten taller in the time since they were friends. Felix hadn’t bothered to keep track, but it’s painfully obvious now; dressed in that stupid unwashed hoodie he’s always wearing, he’s hulking and awkward in their small living area, looking terribly out of place. Which he _is_. It’s _Felix’s apartment_.

“You’d think I could live in peace in my own fucking home,” Felix mutters. “Sylvain needs to stop leaving his garbage lying around.”

Dimitri coughs.

Felix starts banging around in the kitchen, opening and slamming cabinet doors with more force than a midnight snack warrants, as though he might spook Dimitri into leaving like a skittish horse. Dimitri just shifts his weight from foot to foot so Felix says grumpily, “Do you want an acai bowl.”

“What? Oh.” It makes Felix _furious_ , the timidness of the voice coming from such a giant. Dimitri had always been larger than life and now he seems mortified to occupy half the space he does, and Felix hates it. He _hates_ it. “Please don’t worry about me. Thank you.”

Felix doesn’t have time for this. “Do you want,” he grits out, “a stupid acai bowl.”

“…If it doesn’t trouble you, thank you.”

Felix yanks open the freezer. A packet of frozen peas, stuffed haphazardly into the door by Sylvain, lands on his foot.

“Are you—”

“ _It’s fine, they’re peas._ ” He’s going to kill Sylvain. First about the peas and then a few extra times for letting Felix’s Issues wander around their living area in unwashed hoodies and engagement rings. He definitely had more oats this morning. Did Glenn eat his oats? Raw, by the handful? Like an animal?

“Felix,” Dimitri tries again.

“ _What_ ,” Felix snaps, and then sets the blender going so Dimitri can’t actually continue. He pulses it for a few seconds longer than he needs to, just to maintain the quiet calm provided by the horrible grinding.

“What do you want,” he says when it’s done, and Dimitri opens his mouth, and he sets it going again for the second bowl.

Dimitri looks like a lost puppy. Felix gives up and turns off the blender. “Sorry,” he says, tipping the contents into two bowls and dumping a handful of fruit and nuts on top. “Do you want coconut.”

“What?”

“Do,” Felix repeats, lifting a jar of desiccated coconut and gesturing to it, “you. Want. Coconut.”

“Oh,” says Dimitri, looking more lost. “Oh, sure. Thank you.”

“Please stop thanking me every two seconds.”

“O-okay.”

Felix shoves the bowl across the bench. “Eat.”

“Tha—ah, okay.”

There isn’t enough muesli in the bowl. Felix fumes.

“Okay,” he says, having gotten halfway through the bowl with Dimitri apparently unwilling to speak up again. “What do you want.”

“Sylvain said—”

“What do _you_ want,” Felix repeats, frowning. “You wouldn’t stay just because Sylvain told you to. Not if you didn’t have something to say.”

Dimitri stares at him for another moment before dropping his gaze back to his bowl. “You know me too well, as always, Felix.”

Felix snorts. “Really? I’m not sure I ever knew you.”

Dimitri simply bows his head. Felix wants to yank his face back up by the chin and scream in open defiance of his acquiescence, scream that the Dimitri he’d thought he’d known would never succumb to such a pathetic display. Instead he prods angrily at a frozen raspberry instead and watches it shoot around his bowl, leaving red skid marks in its wake.

“I think we need to talk,” Dimitri says in a low voice.

“ _Now_ you want to talk.”

“Now will you let me?” Dimitri asks. “I do not deny that I have been avoiding you, Felix, but do you deny that you would not have allowed me near you, even if I had not been?”

Felix clenches his jaw. “Just say your piece.”

Dimitri inclines his head again. “Will you let me apologise to you?” he says, looking almost pleading. “We… I know I must have hurt you, what with the way I acted. I’m sorry. I owe you an explanation.”

Felix keeps jabbing at his acai bowl to show Dimitri he’s listening. And he is. Just as he had been listening to Glenn, when he’d said maybe this wasn’t as much a lost cause as it had looked from where Felix was standing. Perhaps it’ll look different from here, from behind the kitchen bench where Dimitri is hunched over a bowl he clearly doesn’t know where to start with, if Felix just looks up.

A blueberry bursts under Felix’s spoon. For years all he’d wanted was this—for Dimitri to tell him, really _tell_ him what was going through his head. Maybe for Dimitri to say, ‘I need you, Felix,’ so Felix could admit it in return. And he does have plenty to say to Dimitri in response. Plenty he’d bottled up and left unspoken to a friend who’d turned away and refused to hear it.

Dimitri sounds like he’s struggling to speak. “There was… a lot going through my mind, back then. Not least the… impact I must have had on your family. I—”

“Stop,” Felix orders. Dimitri does, looks at him wide-eyed. Felix’s heart, risen scarcely half an inch, has begun to sink again. The haunted look has not left Dimitri’s gaze, the defeat not chased from the lines its etched in his face. “Stop this. The impact _you_ had? You think you can really claim credit for what happened?”

“No,” Dimitri says, still with his eyes round. “No, that’s not what I meant. I only—” but Felix is laughing, harsh and bitter. “Felix?”

“I should have known,” Felix says. “I don’t want your justifications, boar. If you have no intention of seeing the light then go. I don’t want your dark clouds in my presence.”

“Felix, please,” Dimitri pleads. “You must understand. I didn’t pull away to hurt you. I have to do what’s best for—”

“What’s _best_ for me?”

“For all of you!”

“And since when,” says Felix, voice low and dangerous, “since _when_ do _you_ get to decide what that is?”

“I—”

“No more obfuscations,” Felix demands. “ _Tell me why you left_.”

“I—After what Glenn—”

“ _I’m not Glenn_.”

“Felix, I know,” Dimitri says desperately, “I _know_ , but after what I’d done to Glenn, to all of you, I—”

“After what _you_ did? You didn’t do fucking anything. _Glenn_ did it. Are you too much of a coward to take all this to him? Tell him you think you chose for him?”

“I don’t—”

“Or do you realise how much that would fucking piss him off? You realise when it’s him, but not when it’s me.”

“You don’t understand—”

“ _Then let me!_ ” Felix grabs the blunt kitchen knife from the counter and smacks it point down into the chopping board Sylvain had left by the sink, shaking with something uncontrollable. Dimitri flinches away. “ _Let_ me,” Felix hisses like his throat is sandpaper. “Don’t you realise that the second you look at your own rotting logic it falls apart? You’re in decay!”

“Felix,” says Dimitri. He’s drawn back from the counter, eyeing the knife, and for a moment Felix feels a stab of white-hot guilt, almost enough to ebb the anger and hurt. Almost. “If you were there—if you saw what Glenn—”

“You still _talk_ to Glenn,” Felix says, voice trembling. “He’s the one it happened to, but you talk to him and not me. Come up with a better fucking excuse!”

“Felix, _please_ ,” Dimitri says, sounding wrecked. Felix is shaking, shaking where his hand is still gripped around the handle of the knife. It’s a shitty one. Cost Sylvain two bucks at the dollar store and barely cuts butter. Felix is shaking with something that might be anger, might be hurt, might be desperation to say something and have Dimitri fucking hear it for once instead of looking at him, unseeing, unknowing, with that same _sad fucking look on his face_ , the one Felix despises beyond words, the one that says Felix is already out of his reach.

“Just tell me,” Felix says. “Tell me you didn’t know what to do with me, so you left. Tell me it was too much trouble to handle my feelings on top of everything else. I get it. I understand. If I was never important enough for you to try for, not like _Glenn_ or anyone else, just _tell_ me, Dimitri, and stop disrespecting me enough to fuck with me like this.”

“Felix!”

“Just tell me! Tell me I never mattered to you as much as you did to me!” Felix doesn’t remember beginning to shout. The knife tips out of the pathetic little divot it left in the cutting board and clatters into the sink.

“No!” Dimitri sounds horrified. “No! That was _never_ —”

“Then _get out_!” Felix roars. “GET OUT! Maybe I never knew you! But if you really think this is what I wanted? If you think I could _ever_ want this? Maybe you didn’t know me, either.”

“I had to,” Dimitri whispers. “I couldn’t—I can’t see you without thinking—without thinking about what I’ve done to you. To all of you. If it wasn’t for—”

“I _needed_ you,” Felix says. “And you needed me. You did.”

“I…”

“I _tried_.” Fuck, his voice is cracking. “I tried. You pushed me away. Don’t you fucking tell me it was for my own good. Don’t _insult_ me like that. Just tell me you never knew me.”

“Do you really think that’s true?” Dimitri asks. Felix can’t fucking stand that dripping, overflowing sadness in his voice.

“I know one thing,” Felix says. He tosses his bowl into the sink and swipes at Dimitri’s, angrily turning the faucet on full blast. “I can’t see your face right now. If you’re not going to say anything useful, then go. I’m not going to watch you wallow in self-pity anymore.”

The old Dimitri would have fought for him. Would have grabbed onto him and looked him right in the eye, waited until he looked back. When he said ‘Felix’ it wouldn’t have been with hopelessness but with fire, and he would have made it clear that Felix was something worth fighting to keep—the way Felix would never stop fighting for him—not something he’d already long lost.

Dimitri does not straighten. He turns away.

“I am sorry, once again, to intrude upon your hospitality, Felix.”

“Whatever,” says Felix.

“Please… please thank Sylvain for me. And thank you for the, um, the acai bowl.”

“Whatever,” Felix says again, suddenly very tired.

He hears Dimitri shuffling towards the door and doesn’t look. The last thing he needs is a lasting memory of Dimitri’s hunched back in that pathetic fucking hoodie, crawling out through the exit like he doesn’t deserve to be anywhere. It’s bad enough he’s got the sad eyes seared into his memory—they won’t be leaving him alone for a while.

Door creaks open. In a moment, this will be behind him, and he can pretend Dimitri was never here—which of course he wasn’t, not really.

Dimitri half turns in the doorway.

“Do you remember,” he says, “Felix, do you remember the night you turned seventeen?”

Felix’s hands go still in the sink.

“At the pier,” Dimitri continues. “It was late. Do you remember, Felix?”

Felix does. The water from the tap is skimming lightly off his knuckles.

“You told me you might love me.” Dimitri’s voice cracks. “But that you weren’t sure yet. You told me to wait.”

He remembers. There’s no need for Dimitri to continue.

“I said I would.”

Suds are collecting around his unmoving fingers.

“For as long as—”

“Just go.” Felix shuts off the tap and leans on it, over the sink, loose hair just shy of brushing the dishwater. He’s shaking again. “Leave me alone, Dimitri. Since you obviously can’t wait to.”

He hears more shuffling from the door. Hears Dimitri murmur, “I’m sorry, Felix,” and then the door closes.

Felix is still shaking when he steadies himself against the kitchen counter, and still when he turns around to lean against it, sinking to the floor and burying his face in his hands.


	2. PART TWO.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reiterating warnings: Strong themes of Dimitri's mental health in this chapter! Please proceed with caution if that is a sensitive issue for you.

**then.**

When they are seventeen, Dimitri by two months and Felix just shy of a day, Felix watches the open sea and lets Dimitri take his hand.

“So. Seventeen,” says Dimitri, smiling at the side of Felix’s head. “How do you feel?”

“The same.” The breeze is sweet and cool, toying with the ends of Felix’s hair the way Dimitri doesn’t quite dare to. The stars winking off Felix’s eyes make his face look almost soft, for once. “It’s just a number.”

“You look older.”

“Yeah, right.” Felix inclines his head for just long enough to scoff, before turning back to the water. “I’m the same as yesterday.”

“No, really,” Dimitri insists. “You look more mature.”

“Shut up.”

“Wiser than ever.”

“Fuck off.” Felix throws his full weight against Dimitri’s shoulder, which does nothing, and Dimitri laughs because Felix is. “You still look as stupid as you were last year.”

“Ah, I’ll take it,” Dimitri says, grinning at him. “You always were the smarter one of the two of us.”

“That’s not hard.” Felix finally looks at him, a smirk curling his lip. The stars are gone from his eyes at this new angle, but Dimitri is surprised to find them still soft.

“Happy birthday,” he says.

“Thanks,” says Felix. “You’ve only said it about a million times.”

“Well, I mean it. I want you to have a happy birthday.”

“I am,” says Felix. He squeezes Dimitri’s hand and then goes kind of red about it.

Dimitri glows.

They sit for another moment—Dimitri is content to watch the waves, to feel Felix’s warmth from beside him, not as close as he wants but close enough for this. Felix is quiet in a way Dimitri can’t quite read, although Dimitri has always thought he knew all Felix’s silences—sullen, angry, embarrassed, uncertain, each with its own noiseless cadence. Felix is no longer looking out at the sea; he’s looking away, down over his shoulder, at the water beneath the pier.

“You’re still holding my hand,” Felix says finally, quiet.

Dimitri blinks. “Do you—do you want me to let go?”

“I would’ve said, if I did.”

Dimitri’s lips part slightly in awe. The tips of Felix’s ears are red. “I—”

“Dima,” says Felix, with resolve. Dimitri snaps his mouth shut and looks at him, attentive. Felix slowly looks around, though he still won’t make eye contact—his eyes are fixed firmly on the hem of Dimitri’s jacket.

Felix isn’t speaking, so Dimitri says softly, “Yes, Felix?”

“You—I know you—um,” says Felix, flushing furiously. “Well, I—”

“You know how I feel about you,” Dimitri prompts gently. It’s no secret, and he’s never made one of it, though it’s never been spoken aloud. He has felt, and still feels, that there is no need for it to be said. It was simply known that there was something between the two of them somewhat beyond power of speech, and it didn’t even faze him to contemplate the specifics of Felix’s feelings in return. It didn’t matter, if Felix felt precisely the same. The presence of the unspoken something was all Dimitri has ever needed, completely undeniable, nature be damned—something eternal and unbreakable, and something solely theirs.

Felix has gone still redder in the face. Dimitri squeezes his hand. “Are you alright?”

“I think I love you,” Felix blurts, and then snatches his hand back to bury his face in it. Dimitri is frozen, hand still hanging where Felix had ripped his away, staring wide-eyed at Felix’s burning ears.

“What?” he says carefully.

“I think,” Felix says. “But I’m—I’m not sure. Maybe. I don’t know yet.”

Dimitri is beginning to smile, uncontrollably, uncontainably. He reaches to take Felix’s hand again, pulling it gently from his face, brushing hair from Felix’s eyes as he goes. “You didn’t want to wait until you were sure to tell me?”

“Shut up,” Felix snaps, although he lets Dimitri reclaim his hand. “I—I wanted you to know. But I’m not—I don’t know. I don’t know yet.”

“That’s okay,” says Dimitri.

“I might. I think I—” Felix glares at him. “Wait for me,” he says suddenly. “Wait for me to be sure. And then I’ll—just wait for me.”

“I will,” Dimitri says without pause. “Of course I will, I always will. You know that.”

Felix turns back to the sea. Dimitri threads his fingers between Felix’s, and Felix squeezes his hand again without looking.

“We have time,” Felix murmurs, possibly to himself. “Right?”

“All the time in the world,” says Dimitri.

* * *

**now.**

_Pathetic._

He forgot to close the curtains last night. It’s going on noon. The sun is harsh in his eye.

_You can’t even do this much right?_

He flings an arm over his face. His head is pounding.

_Hope you had fun. Was it worth it?_

“I saw you.”

_Fat lot of good you did about it._

“Did you want me stay? Should I have fought to—”

_Fucking of course not. You saw the way I looked at you the other night._

Dimitri groans. He didn’t drink enough water. His head hurts. “Were you… angry because I ignored you, that night at the party? Or…”

_You know why._

“Sorry.”

_Get out of bed. You’re disgusting to look at._

Dimitri nods and rolls sideways until his legs hang off the bed. The sheets are twisted all around his torso. He can’t remember where he left his phone. It must be in the kitchen. He’s still in last night’s clothes.

_Don’t tell me you’re a drunk on top of everything else, now._

His mouth tastes foul. “I didn’t drink that much.”

_That’s right, I forgot. You don’t need alcohol to be a fucking mess._

His phone is, in fact, on the floor beside the kitchen bench. He must have tossed it haphazardly in the vague direction when he got home and not noticed when it clattered off. It’s cracked enough, anyway, that it doesn’t make too much of a difference. Glenn’s texted him; so has Dedue.

> **Glenn:** ok big guy?

_Still fucking bothering him, I see. Pitiful. After everything he gave up for you, you still force him to worry about you._

> **Dedue:** How did things go with Felix? Let me know when you’re awake.

Felix doesn’t seem to have anything to say about Dedue’s message, so Dimitri taps out an agonisingly slow response.

> **Dimitri:** I’m awake

The message is from four hours ago, so Dimitri isn’t surprised when Dedue doesn’t reply right away. He flicks back to Glenn’s message.

_You’re going to make him_ wait _now, too?_

> **Dimitri:** All good.
> 
> **Glenn:** things ok with you and felix? he said you fought.
> 
> **Dimitri:** All good

Felix doesn’t have anything to say about this, either. Maybe he’s lost, the way Dimitri is.

* * *

> **Ingrid:** Dimitri, if you haven’t done your laundry by the time I get to your place, I’m going to stand over you until you do it. I have all weekend.

Dimitri is halfway through a long process of folding one clean sock and then spacing out at the wall for three minutes (rinse and repeat) before Ingrid shows up to remind him that you don’t even fold socks.

“Dimitri, I’m _worried_ about you,” she says, like she doesn’t make this clear to him at least once a week.

“I’m fine,” he says.

“How long have you been wearing that hoodie?”

“It’s fine,” Dimitri says, taking the balled-up socks she keeps handing him and placing them gently onto his bed—namely, not where they are meant to be.

Ingrid stops handing him socks. “You’ve been worse,” she says. “Since you went to see Felix.”

_Sure. Blame it on me._

“I told you I’m fine,” he says.

_I’d hate to see you at your worst, then._

“I wouldn’t want you to,” Dimitri murmurs.

“What?” Ingrid asks.

“No,” says Dimitri, “sorry, it’s nothing.”

“Glenn said you’ve been weird,” she persists. “Is it getting bad again?”

“Ingrid,” he says, and something in his voice must stop her. “I’m all right. You don’t need to worry. I will tell you if I cannot handle my—if I cannot handle it.”

“Will you?” she wheedles, but lets it go and tosses another sock ball at his head. He lets it bounce off his temple and watches it roll to a stop on his carpet. “Tell me what happened the other night, at least.”

“Nothing,” murmurs Dimitri, while Felix whispers _you knew, you must always have known, you break me every time and you’re no fucking good for me_ in the back of his skull. “He didn’t say much.”

* * *

_What are you yearning for, pathetic boar? I’m long gone._

* * *

“Is he talking now?” Byleth enquires.

“No.”

“When does he talk?”

_When I want to._

“When he wants to,” Dimitri answers.

_Don’t speak for me._

“Sorry,” Dimitri murmurs.

“Was that him?” asks Byleth, so Dimitri nods. “His name is Felix?” Dimitri nods again. “Who is he?”

“My friend,” Dimitri says, hoping to get away with—

_Really?_

“Old friend,” Dimitri corrects himself, wincing. “Glenn’s brother.”

“I see,” says Byleth, writing something down.

Byleth’s office is small and smells of essential oils. Three cushy chairs face their desk. They always pour him tea. It’s always his favourite blend.

_I hear him_ , he’d told them, for the first time today. _I hear him speaking to me._

Their face remained passive when they’d asked _Who?_ —not a hint of pity, nor surprise, though this is their fourth or fifth such session without so much as a mention. It’s one of many things he likes about coming here, and why they work so well. They read him and yet cannot be read in return. There is no flinch he can pick upon that makes him shrink away in shame or uncertainty. Byleth remains stalwart and unaffected, no matter the demons he shares.

“You don’t hear Glenn’s voice?” they say.

“No.”

“Not your parents?”

“No.”

“Why is that?” Byleth muses, eyes piercing.

Dimitri shrugs.

Byleth puts down their pen. “Perhaps guilt?”

Dimitri furrows his brow. “Why wouldn’t I hear Glenn if it were guilt?”

“Maybe guilt is the wrong word,” says Byleth. “Regret? Or… some unfinished business?”

“Unfinished business,” Dimitri repeats. “Like a ghost.”

“But Felix is alive,” Byleth says.

_You fucking bet I am._

“Is there something you need to settle with him?” asks Byleth. “I get the sense you didn’t resolve much when you went to see him.”

“I… I don’t know.”

_In case you forgot, I want nothing to do with you._

“I don’t think,” says Dimitri, and pauses. “I don’t know that I have the right.”

“Dimitri,” says Byleth, in that way that makes Dimitri snap to attention like he’s a schoolboy again. They lean forward, looking through him. “Tell me something. Are you happy?”

“Happy?” He’s starting to feel a little absent again. He shakes his head. _Are you losing it even more, wild boar?_ “I’m fine.”

“But are you happy?”

Dimitri starts. Right, Byleth had thought he was talking to them. “I… I don’t know. That’s not… the point.”

Byleth tilts their head. “Why not?”

“I’m not—” What he wants to say is _I’m not important_ , but he can tell that’s not going to go over well in _therapy_.

They save him. “What is the point?” they ask. “Is _Felix_ happy? Is that the point?”

_I’m happy every moment I don’t have to spend staring at your fucking face._

“I don’t know,” Dimitri says again, weakly. “I… think so.”

“Did he seem happy?”

_No, because I was fucking talking to you._ “I don’t know,” Dimitri says again.

“Okay,” says Byleth, straightening up. “Well, let’s try something else.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise.” Byleth smiles then, a small, rare thing that hardly changes their face. “We’ll go a different route. How about you tell me about your friendship? When you were young.”

“Our…”

“Tell me about _your_ Felix,” Byleth suggests. “The Felix you remember.”

His Felix. Okay. He can talk about his Felix.

“We were best friends,” he says, and loses track, because Felix is speaking rapid-fire and drowning it all out. Spewing memories and falsehoods and accusations, pouring out all at once, flooding his brain, and it’s so _loud_ he claps his hands over his ears and shakes his head—

“Dimitri,” Byleth is saying. They have a hand on his shoulder. “Dimitri?”

“I’m all right,” he hears himself saying. Byleth comes into focus. Felix’s tirade trails to a hum.

Byleth wordlessly hands him his teacup and he takes it, watching the tea splosh gently, trying to keep it from spilling over the edge as a way to ease the trembling of his hands.

“I’m all right,” he says again.

“Don’t force yourself, if you can’t,” says Byleth. “Just think about it, and you can tell me next time."

Dimitri nods. He wants to. Something in his throat swells when he tries. He takes a shaking sip of tea.

“As much or as little as you’d like,” Byleth adds gently.

They sit quietly beside him, a warm, grounding presence at his shoulder, while the cup slowly steadies in his hold. Felix’s voice ebbs away, little by little. It’s a few moments longer before Dimitri trusts himself to speak again.

“I loved him,” he says in a low voice. “We were inseparable.”

Felix is silent.

* * *

**then.**

“I won’t go if you don’t,” says Felix.

“It’s only a few days,” laughs Dimitri. “You’ll be okay without me.”

“That’s not—that’s not what I meant,” says Felix, reddening. “You need me more than I need you, anyway.”

“That’s true. Who knows what trouble I will find without you?”

“You’ll be kidnapped,” says Felix.

“I’ll break a leg.”

“An arm.”

“Perhaps I will lose my mind,” says Dimitri, starting to grin again, “and get arrested for starting a fight at the bar.”

“The bar!” Felix flops backward onto his lap, watching him with slitted eyes and a wry smile. “You? You haven’t drunk a day in your life.”

“That’s true. But perhaps it has only been so because you have been with me. Perhaps I will become a drunk without you. Who can say?”

“You’ll go straight to the casino,” Felix muses. “Throw your fortune on the poker machines.”

“On blackjack.”

“Roulette.”

“I _will_ miss you,” Dimitri smiles, looking down at him. “But it’s only a few days, and you ought to accompany your father. I know he wants to be closer to you.”

“Exactly why you should come with us,” Felix mutters. “He’d welcome you. You know the old man better than I do.”

“Felix, that’s not true. And even if it were, that would be all the more reason for you to go.”

“Camping,” Felix laments. “I hate camping. It’s your thing, not mine.”

“You can tell him so when you are on your trip.”

“You are the worst best friend in the world,” Felix complains, waving a hand through the air and catching Dimitri in the chin, but Dimitri just beams at him. “Why don’t you want to come?”

“I do,” Dimitri assures him, “I always want to spend time with you, you know that. But I really think you ought to spend this time with your father, Felix.”

Felix groans.

“Fe-lix,” Dimitri wheedles, sticking out his lower lip.

“Oh, fine. Don’t give me that face. I hate that face.” Felix flails around at Dimitri’s back and then successfully pulls his collar over his head. Dimitri squawks. “Don’t die without me.”

“I cannot promise,” Dimitri sighs, extracting himself from his collar. “Oh, Felix. Whatever shall I do without you?”

“Ugh.” Felix sits up and shoves Dimitri, who topples willingly over and gazes happily at him from the couch cushions. “Never mind. Maybe a few days away from you is what I need.”

“You wound me, Felix,” Dimitri moans, and his raucous laughter is muffled by the cushion Felix smacks into his face.

* * *

**now.**

Dimitri goes home with worksheets and firm instructions to please connect with another human being please, a task he fulfils by cheating and sending Dedue a new recipe for cinnamon scrolls. It doesn’t count when it’s Dedue—he’s the easiest person to talk to that Dimitri has ever met, so it’s no challenge.

> **Dedue:** Is this a hint? Do you want cinnamon scrolls?
> 
> **Dimitri:** Ha, no. I thought you would find it interesting.
> 
> **Dedue:** I do. Thank you.
> 
> **Dedue:** Additionally, though you know I am always happy to speak with you, I feel I must remind you that when your therapist tells you to talk to someone, they do not mean me.
> 
> **Dimitri:** You know me too well…

Maybe he should actually try and make a proper lunch for once. Dedue had stopped by with fresh tomatoes from his garden earlier in the week, so he could—

_Really? You? You think you can_ cook _? You break everything you touch._

—make some instant ramen, maybe.

While he waits for the water to boil, he flips through old photos on his phone. Felix provides a running commentary— _your hair is a mess. I liked it better before. Like that. Did you care about me then? Or then? Look, I used to smile. For you. Remember that?_

He puts down his phone, disturbed.

_Do I sound different, beast?_

The water is boiling.

He can’t taste the flavour packets but puts them all in anyway, coughing a little when the powder flies up and hits his throat. _Stupid boar, don’t you remember half a packet is enough?_

“Enough for you, and only because you can’t handle the spice,” Dimitri murmurs.

_Take that back!_

“You do sound different,” Dimitri ventures. “What has changed?”

_Not your delusions._

“Is it because we spoke?”

_Are you daft? Do you think anything came of that disaster of a conversation, if you can even call it that?_

“But you sound different.”

_Why do you even go to therapy if you’re still going to hear voices_ , Felix snips, so Dimitri gives up and opens Messenger. He has so many unread messages. Some going back days and days. He wonders, not for the first time, why anyone bothers.

“Talk to someone,” Byleth had said, and he’d given them a helpless look and asked, “Who?”

“I don’t know,” they replied. “Who do you want to talk to?”

Felix. The answer is always Felix.

_You needed me. You did._

He did. He does. Of course he does. He’d needed Felix so badly he hadn’t even been surprised when Felix had started whispering to him; some vile facsimile concocted by his own rotting mind and the best he could hope to deserve. It stopped him from reaching for Felix, as he’d so desperately wanted to.

_Why didn’t you?_

“I couldn’t,” Dimitri mumbles. “I can’t. Look at me—look what I’ve done to you.”

Felix is silent again. He’s been doing that more since they spoke in his apartment. Speaking more quietly, when he does. He sounds _sad_. Thoughtful. He’s usually only angry. Venomous. Spitting the thoughts that Dimitri would have for himself, if Felix weren’t there to voice them.

_But I’m_ not _here._

Yes… That’s right. Another thing Byleth had said. “He’s not real,” they’d reminded him. “But there _is_ a real Felix out there you can talk to. Don’t get him confused with the one your mind created.”

“You’re very good at this,” he’d told them.

“It’s my job.”

“How did you know you wanted to be a therapist?” he’d asked.

“I didn’t,” Byleth said. “They hired me off the street.” Once again, he hadn’t been able to tell if they were joking.

* * *

_I liked it when he smiled_ , he will tell Byleth next time. _He used to do it all the time._

* * *

Dimitri doesn’t call Felix. He calls Glenn.

“ _Hey, I’m not here. Leave a message. Fucking text me, actually, what is this, 1901? (Glenn, you can’t swear on your voicemail.) What? Yes I—”_ The tone cuts him off.

Dimitri hangs up without leaving a message. Doesn’t text, either. He hadn’t had anything to say, anyway.

Ingrid’s voice was in his message. Dimitri still hasn’t congratulated them on their engagement, nor RSVPed to the wedding invitation.

_You’re such a wreck. You call yourself their friend?_

They seemed happy together. The last time he’d seen them, Glenn was urging Ingrid to push him down a _slightly_ too-steep-to-be-advisable ramp and she was protesting, which she always did as a token, before gleefully shoving him down and then running shrieking with laughter after him. Glenn had bruised his shoulder skidding against a wall and she’d kissed it in ‘apology’ while he cackled about it.

Dimitri and Felix had been a little like that, once.

_That was a long time ago._

He’s about to return to his soggy, half-eaten noodles when his phone rings. He jumps, badly, spilling soup across the tabletop, but it’s just Glenn. Just Glenn. Glenn is calling back.

“ _Hey, Mitya, I was about to call_.”

A sense of foreboding hits him. Byleth told him to watch for that. Byleth also told him that calling it ‘a sense of foreboding’ might make it worse, because it sounded a lot more serious than ‘chronic pessimism which by the way you need to work on’.

“Glenn? What’s wrong?” Dimitri says anyway.

“ _You always assume something’s wrong_ ,” Glenn says.

“Is something wrong?”

“ _Well… yeah_ ,” says Glenn. “ _Don’t worry. It’s nothing huge. Sorry I missed your call. We were just going to meet Felix at, uh, at the hospital_ —”

It suddenly feels very much as though the entire world has been submerged in water. Dimitri is still holding the phone but his fingers feel like they’re attached to someone else’s arm. Glenn is still talking, but none of it sounds like words to Dimitri.

“What?” he says faintly.

_Hey._ _Maybe I’m all you’ll have left of me. How would that be?_

“ _Relax, Mitya_ ,” says Glenn. His voice is muffled and Dimitri can hardly hear it over the pounding of his blood in his ears. “ _I told you it’s nothing huge. He’s fine._ ”

“What happened?!” Dimitri demands anyway, unable to ease the hammering in his chest, and hears Glenn sigh. “Glenn, you can’t—”

“ _I know_ ,” says Glenn, sounding tired. “ _Collision. He was on his motorbike, other guy didn’t see him. It wasn’t bad._ ”

“And he’s—”

“ _He’s_ fine,” Glenn says again. “ _Crabby. A little bruised._ ”

_I’m fine_ , Felix chants in his head, _I’m fine, I’m fine, for now._

Dimitri pauses for a moment, unsure of how to phrase what he’s thinking. “And…” he says. “How come… how come you called me?”

“ _Huh? Don’t you want—_ ”

“I mean, I’m glad you did,” Dimitri says quickly. “I just thought—Well, I didn’t think he’d—”

“ _Mitya_ ,” Glenn says. “ _Don’t overthink it. Come see him._ ”

_Do I want to see you?_

“I—yes. Would that—would that be okay?”

“ _Obviously_ ,” says Glenn.

“With him,” Dimitri clarifies quietly.

Glenn doesn’t say anything for a second, then: “ _Obviously_ ,” he says again. “ _See you in a minute, big guy._ ”

“Yes,” says Dimitri, already scrambling for his keys. “Yes, I’ll be right there.”

“ _Drive safe._ ”

The world is spinning.

_Glenn said I’m fine_ , Felix reminds him, but Dimitri’s not paying enough attention to anything to notice that his words are reassurance, for once.

* * *

_Regret?_ Byleth said. _Or… some unfinished business?_

* * *

“Whoa,” says Sylvain, when Dimitri appears out of breath in the ward. “Run many red lights to get here?”

He’d sped through an empty pedestrian crossing. “I was lucky.”

“He’s fine, you know,” Sylvain says. “Glenn told you he’s fine?”

_But you’re a fucking worrywart._

“Yes,” says Dimitri.

“Well, you shouldn’t have hurried,” Sylvain says grumpily, “they’re not letting us in right now, just Glenn and Rodrigue. Ingrid’s at work, she’ll come later.”

“What’s—”

“Bruised ribs,” Sylvain says, anticipating his question like he so often uncannily does. “A little concussion. Tiny bit scraped up, but nothing that broke his rogueish good looks. Felix is a good boy, he gets kitted up before he goes out on his bike.” He taps his head. “Wear your helmet!”

“A concussion,” Dimitri repeats, brows knitting, and Sylvain reaches to press his thumb to the bridge of Dimitri’s nose before he can frown too much. An old habit, from when they were kids. Dimitri goes a little cross-eyed looking at Sylvain’s thumb.

“Don’t get in your head about it,” Sylvain says lightly. “I told you he’s fine.”

“Yes,” says Dimitri, willing himself to relax. “Thank you, Sylvain.”

“Take a seat,” Sylvain offers. There’s one shitty plastic chair hanging out in the hall, others scattered and taken throughout the rest of the ward. “Don’t know how long before they let us in. Just procedure or whatever.”

“You take it,” Dimitri says automatically. He doesn’t think he could sit anyway, sure to start jittering his leg and pissing off the nurses.

“You sure?” Sylvain asks, and doesn’t wait for Dimitri to answer before he collapses into the chair with a little sigh—they both know what Dimitri would say, anyway. “Man, work sucked today. This is like a vacation.” He winks so Dimitri knows he’s kidding, needlessly, and Dimitri forces a laugh. “How’re you?”

“Fine, thank you.” Again, automatic. Sylvain doesn’t push, though from the second, slightly more scrutinising look he gets, Dimitri suspects Sylvain can tell he’s not actually all that fine. The hospital is starting to get to him.

_What’s the matter?_

_It’s the smell_ , Dimitri murmurs to Felix. _The disinfectant._ There’s hand sanitiser on every wall. The strange smell that’s neither old nor new, neither sterile nor ill. It clings to the seats and the robes and the beds, and Dimitri can smell it on himself for hours after if not days.

_At least you’ll do your laundry for once_ , Felix sniffs, _to get it off your clothes._

He’d rushed into the hospital without much thought, but now that he has the time to stand, painful awareness rushes back in. The halls haunted by clinical sameness, the depressing little ‘activity rooms’ populated by faces that aren’t so much sad as drawn low, the terrible, neon emptiness wrought by the smiling teddy bears. The dreadful gloom and _wrong_ that fills the premises, augmented by false cheer and the groans of the lost and losing. He knows them too well. Setting foot in any hospital since—since, is something he’s determinedly avoided.

He’s shoved out of his head again by Sylvain chucking a Tic Tac at his nose. “Hey,” Sylvain says. “You with me?”

Dimitri blinks. “Yeah,” he says, “yes, sorry.”

“Don’t apologise. Everything okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Everything _really_ okay?”

If Sylvain is actually asking and not politely allowing, he must look bad. “I’m okay,” Dimitri reassures him. “I just—um, I don’t know how Felix will react to seeing me here, that’s all.”

“And I’m guessing you don’t like hospitals,” Sylvain says shrewdly, so Dimitri gives in and nods.

“Hey,” says Sylvain. He’s got that familiar half-smile on again, a Sylvain Classic. Dimitri remembers it from when they were children. It means, ‘I’m about to make everything okay.’ It means, ‘I’ve got you.’

Sylvain says, “Remember Glenn’s party?”

“I remember.”

“Felix got smashed,” Sylvain laughs, and Dimitri thinks, _okay, not the opening I was expecting._ “I practically had to carry him home.”

“Is that so?” Perhaps Sylvain’s strategy is simply to keep him distracted until the nurses will let him in. Keep him from getting antsy. He can try to keep his focus, if that is the case. Respect the attempt.

“Yeah. You remember when we were little? Damn, was that kid a blabbermouth. Crying on about anything and everything that entered his head. You remember?”

“I do.”

“I miss that little kid,” Sylvain smiles. “Anyway, turns out when he’s drunk, he gets kinda like that again.”

_This_ gets Dimitri’s attention—the sort he doesn’t have to fight to maintain. “What do you mean?”

“He babbles,” Sylvain says. “Well, slurs a bit. He’s the lightest weight there is, did you know that? Featherweight. Bubbleweight. Wouldn’t stop talking about you.”

_What does that mean?_ Dimitri asks Felix silently, but Felix has no answer for him.

“Don’t you wanna know what he said?”

“Do I?” Dimitri asks weakly.

Sylvain grins. “Oh, yeah. You’re gonna wanna hear this one.”

The nurses are starting to bustle out, but Dimitri is focused on Sylvain.

Sylvain pops the lid off his box of Tic Tacs and says, “Want one? They’re called MINT EVOLUTION, whatever _that_ means.”

“Sylvain!”

“Alright,” Sylvain says, still grinning, and chucks another Tic Tac at him. It bounces off his nose. “Dramatic retelling: I half-drag, half-carry Felix up the stairs, because he’s tiny but super uncooperative and keeps flailing around and trying to pop me one on the nose. The scene is set. It’s a beautiful two AM, the drunks are singing, the moon is high—whoa, there, highness, keep grinding your teeth like that and you’re gonna lose ‘em before your time.”

Dimitri just looks at him.

“Say, did you know you’d have to eat five thousand, nine hundred and fifty-seven Tic Tacs to die of a sugar overdose?”

“Sylvain,” Dimitri starts to say, but Sylvain is laughing again and waving him off.

“ _Dima_ ,” he says.

“What?”

“Dima. That’s what Felix said. Over and over. _Dima wouldn’t look at meee. Muuuhh, why doesn’t Dima liiike me anymore? I miss Dima!_ And then a lot of _SylvaaaAAAAAaaain_ , which I wish I recorded, because honestly, I want that as my ringtone.”

“You’re—you’re exaggerating,” Dimitri says, reeling and suddenly wishing he’d taken Sylvain up on his chair offer.

“I’m not. Imagine Felix’s face if I got a phone call in front of him. I’d literally just call myself nonstop—heck, I’d start using a landline again if—”

“I _mean_ ,” says Dimitri, but Sylvain says, “I know what you mean, dude, come on.”

A considering silence. Light pattering, as Sylvain unthinkingly tosses his box of Tic Tacs in the air without closing it and sends Tic Tacs skittering across the hospital floor.

“I’m not exaggerating,” says Sylvain. “Not much, anyway. Maybe a little bit.”

“I knew it,” Dimitri starts saying, but Sylvain cuts him off.

“No, seriously, just the silly voice. He just kept mumbling about you. I couldn’t even tell what he was saying half the time, but it pretty much boiled down to missing you and wondering why you stopped being his friend. Then he started giggling about my houseplant. Then he started crying.” Sylvain pulls a face. “More entertaining than TV, but TV doesn’t throw up on my shoes. Italian leather. Sentimental value—I bought them to piss off my dad.” He considers. “Actually, I guess this means I can get another pair. Thanks, Felix.”

“I’ll,” says Dimitri, lost and defaulting to nebulously guilty, “I’ll reimburse you for the shoes.”

“What,” says Sylvain.

“I don’t—I don’t know. I feel somehow responsible.”

Sylvain throws him a look somewhere between pitying and baffled. “How is _this_ your takeaway?”

“That doesn’t,” says Dimitri weakly, finally giving up and stumbling to lean against a nearby wall. “That doesn’t—none of that means—he was drunk, it doesn’t—”

“I thought you might say as much,” Sylvain says, straightening, “which is what brings me to—ta-dah!—earlier today, after little Felix was hit by an entire vehicle.”

Dimitri winces.

“And was fine,” Sylvain adds hastily. “Did I mention he’s fine?”

“Continue,” Dimitri mutters, closing his eyes against the horrors Felix summons for him at once.

Sylvain casts him a guilty look, but continues obligingly. “He asked for you,” he says. “When they got here, he was still a little out of it. Just kept asking for you. That’s why we called you.”

_Obviously_ , Glenn had said, when Dimitri asked if he was welcome. If Felix wanted him there.

_Well, what did you think?_

_You sound different_ , Dimitri tells Felix again, and again he does not answer.

“‘Dima’ again,” Sylvain says. “First thing he said, to hear the paramedics tell it.”

Dimitri looks into the room again, but the curtain is drawn, and he can’t see anything from here.

* * *

**then.**

Dimitri comes out on top and exits the ring glowing, accepting Glenn’s enthusiastic whoop with a grin that splits his face in two. Felix’s smile is a little wan, but his eyes are as sharp and warm as ever when he reaches to clap Dimitri on the back and help him with his gloves.

“Your technique was sloppy in the third round,” he tells Dimitri, ignoring Glenn’s eyeroll. “You should train more.”

“You’re not even fighting today,” Glenn reminds him. Felix ignores this too.

Dimitri just laughs and throws an affectionate arm around Felix’s shoulder. “I am always better for your sharp eye, Felix! Train with me next week, okay?”

“‘Kay,” says Felix, knocking him fondly back with his hip. “It was a good fight. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Dimitri says, beaming down at him until he goes pink and looks away.

Felix seems slightly subdued for the rest of the tournament, not providing the usual stream of commentary and criticism Dimitri has come to depend on to refine his own skills. When Dimitri glances over at him, he seems barely to be paying attention, staring blankly at the floor between his feet. He looks a bit pale.

“Are you okay?” Dimitri asks him over the noise, and gets a murmured _yeah_ in response.

The tournament is too fast-paced to spend too long pressing and Dimitri is quickly reabsorbed into the action. It’s warm in the arena—stifling, really, and they’re all sweating—but it doesn’t bother him all that much, not with all the excitement. They’ve been waiting for this. He doesn’t notice anything’s wrong until they have to get up for the break and Felix sways slightly on his feet.

“Felix?” Dimitri asks, worried, and Felix makes some vague mumbled noise that sounds like it’s trying to be words and waves him on. Hoping the open air outside the arena will help, Dimitri starts to edge out of the stands, but a moment later there’s a light gasp from the people around them and then Felix collapses into his side. “Felix?!”

“Felix!” Glenn shouts from the floor, seeing the clamour. “Mitya, get him out here, okay?”

“Y-yeah!” Dimitri tries to manoeuvre Felix’s limp body half onto his back and shift him out of the stands, away from the crowd. Felix’s head lolls over his shoulder. “Felix,” Dimitri says desperately, heart pounding. Why hadn’t he _noticed_ something was wrong? “Felix, I’m sorry!”

Glenn’s pushing through the crowd to pull Felix down to a more open space and laying him on a mat—Dimitri can see the people at the first aid tent beginning to run over. “Calm down, Dima,” Glenn is saying, so Dimitri must look at least half as panicked as he feels. Glenn is checking Felix’s pulse. “Looks like he just fainted, that’s all. Hey, Lixie, c’mon. Back to us.”

He pats Felix’s cheek lightly. Dimitri leans over him, watching frantically for movement. “Why did—what’s wrong with him,” he says, “why did he—”

“Probably just dehydration,” Glenn is saying soothingly, patting Dimitri on the shoulder. “He was running a bit of a fever before we got here, but he wanted to see your fight.”

“He came even though he was sick?”

“It wasn’t too bad this morning,” Glenn says, feeling Felix’s forehead and frowning. “Dumb kid, I guess he didn’t drink anything. It’s so fucking hot in here, too. Hey, there he is. C’mon, Lixie.”

Felix is already stirring. Dimitri is reaching for him before he knows it, gripping Felix’s limp hand in his own shaking ones even while their coach tries to nudge him away to give Felix space.

Felix’s face creases, eyelids fluttering vaguely, and he mumbles, “Dima?”

“Yes,” says Dimitri anxiously. “Felix…”

He does get shoved away then, Glenn leaning over to fuss and the first aid people hurrying to give him water. He sees Felix searching for him, eyes roving the crowds before they fix on Dimitri through a gap between two people. Dimitri tries to apologise through eye contact alone— _I’m sorry I didn’t realise, sorry I didn’t help you, sorry I didn’t catch you_ —but then one of the people moves in the way and Felix is out of sight again.

* * *

_We’ve been together all our lives_ , Dimitri tells Byleth in his head. _He’s my first and strongest instinct. And I was always his._

* * *

‘ _Was_ ’ _, boar?_

* * *

**now.**

When the nurse finally steps out to give them the clear, she takes one look at all six foot whatever of the both of them and says, “Only one at a time, please, we’re a little cramped in there.”

Sylvain looks at Dimitri, but Dimitri gestures, graciously he hopes, for Sylvain to go first. Sylvain thanks him by yawning in his face and hopping up. “Reckon you’ll wanna take your time with little Fefe,” he says, and winks. “All good out here?”

“Yes,” says Dimitri, valiantly ignoring the first part. “Go on.”

Sylvain saunters in and a moment later Glenn pops his head out, looking disgruntled. “Not enough room,” he says.

“Sylvain is large,” says Dimitri knowingly, and Glenn laughs while he carefully manoeuvres his chair out of the small room. He makes a face.

“Hate these doors,” he says. “Always too narrow. Shitty design.”

“He’s alright?” Dimitri asks.

“Yeah, Mitya, he’s fine, just like I told you.” Glenn rolls his eyes. “Sit down so I can reach your head.”

Dimitri obligingly sits down. Glenn cuffs him over the head. “Ow…”

“Dumb kid,” Glenn says affectionately. “Felix is properly awake and talking like a human. Well enough to bitch, so he’s fine.” He hesitates. “He’ll wanna see you.”

“Are you sure?” Dimitri says softly.

Glenn’s eyes are more like Rodrigue’s than Felix’s—cool blue, not amber, and more angular. But one thing they do have in common is the sharp stare Glenn is fixing on him now. A Fraldarius specialty—the one Dimitri finds uncomfortably piercing, the one that seems to be looking right through him, that always lingers a moment too long. “Of course,” Glenn says, finally. “He asked for you.”

“Sylvain told me.” Dimitri drops his gaze. Dazed and half-awake, Felix’s instinct matches the Felix he knew. But he’s not confident that that holds when Felix is active and aware.

_Why not?_

_What?_ Dimitri asks Felix, but Felix doesn’t explain.

“Mitya,” Glenn says. “Talk to me. What _happened_ with you two?”

_This again._

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Dimitri mutters.

“You’ve got to,” Glenn says sharply. “I can’t _watch_ this, idiot, you’re miserable. Whatever went down, I can’t believe it’s enough to split you two down the middle—I mean, you were inseparable.”

“That was a long time ago,” murmurs Dimitri. “Before…”

Glenn cocks his head. “Before this,” he says drily, gesturing to his chair. “Right?”

Dimitri can tell from the way Glenn’s gaze sharpens that he didn’t miss Dimitri’s flinch.

“Tell me what happened,” Glenn says, more gently. “Tell me, Mitya.”

Dimitri swallows. “I just,” he whispers. “It just can’t be the same after what I di—after what, um, happened to your family. When you saved me.”

“To our family?” Glenn asks.

“You suffered so much,” Dimitri says softly. “That night. I saw—how it—”

“You don’t need to describe the knife,” Glenn says coolly. “I was there.”

Dimitri lowers his eyes.

Glenn leans in. “Mitya,” he says, adopting his no-bullshit voice. “If you’re so worried about what you”—he raises his fingers in air quotes—“what ‘you’ did to our family, why aren’t you like that with _me_?”

“You wouldn’t let me, for one thing,” Dimitri mutters without thinking, which makes Glenn guffaw. “I don’t know, it’s—it’s different.”

“Is it,” Glenn deadpans, recovering. “And Dad? You still talk to him.”

“Yes… but—”

“What about Ingrid?” Glenn asks. “All that shit impacted her, too, you know. You’re still friends.”

“Of course,” says Dimitri, “but—”

“So,” Glenn continues, patiently ignoring him, “what’s the difference?”

“You don’t underst—”

“No, Mitya, I’m _asking_. There has to be a difference. What’s the difference between us and Felix?”

This stops Dimitri in his tracks. “What?”

“What makes us different?” Glenn repeats. “If it’s only Felix you don’t have a right to be friends with, then why?”

_Yeah_ , whispers Felix, _why?_

_Why?_ Dimitri asks back. _Why?_

_You know._

“Felix is different,” Dimitri realises. “We were never… just friends.”

Glenn smirks. “Well, I don’t want the details,” he says.

“No, I don’t mean—like that,” Dimitri says, embarrassed, but even as he says it he wonders. He and Felix transcended friendship, transcended romance… but did they _pass_ romance? Had they ever?

_Wait for me_ , Felix had said. _Wait for me to be sure._

They’d had so much time, an entire infinity contained in those short moments together on the pier. Not two days before Dimitri had lost everything.

Those moments felt stolen, now. Dimitri would have clung onto them forever, desperate for the full infinity, and waited for Felix the whole while.

“Lemme take a guess, yeah? Maybe you feel guilty about _our_ _family_ ,” Glenn says, “because you wanted to be _part_ of it, and you feel like you lost the right. How’s that sound?”

“You should be a therapist,” Dimitri says weakly without even fully processing what Glenn had said, because that had sounded a little too scarily close to Byleth.

“Maybe a relationship counsellor,” Glenn says slyly. “Ingrid thinks I’m pretty good.”

_Part_ of their family. Was _that_ it? Perhaps, broken beyond recognition as it was at Dimitri’s own hands, Dimitri had looked through the window at what they still had and decided he deserved no piece of it. Perhaps he looked at Felix and saw only the pain Dimitri himself had inflicted, and wanted to spare Felix from more of it—or perhaps he was punishing himself, and Felix was a blessing he was not entitled to. A little piece of the heaven he’d fallen from.

_Is that fair?_

_It’s justice_ , Dimitri whispers back. _Justice, for the pain I’ve imparted. For my sins._

_No_ , says Felix, _is it fair to_ me _?_

“Well, have fun,” Glenn says, crushing some stray Tic Tacs under his wheels as he backs off. “I’m gonna get some gummy bears or something, I’m fucking hungry and Felix wouldn’t give me his jelly cup. Hey,” he says, snapping his fingers in front of Dimitri’s face. “Mitya. Think about it.”

“Mm,” says Dimitri. “Mm?”

“Just think about it,” Glenn repeats, ice blue hawk eyes on him again. He smiles. “What makes Felix different?”

_You love me_ , whispers Felix. _You’re afraid you don’t deserve me._

_I don’t_ , Dimitri answers.

_Do I care?_

“Give me a dollar,” Glenn says, “I don’t have any fucking change.”

Dimitri idly pulls out a five dollar note and hands it to Glenn, barely seeing him head off down the hallway. Too busy probing anxiously at his own thoughts.

Sylvain emerges from the room, accompanied by Rodrigue. “You can go in if you want,” Sylvain tells him. “Felix is crabby, but no more than normal, and also he doesn’t have a sword in here, so you’re fine.”

Rodrigue looks around. “Where’s Glenn?”

“Gummy bears,” Dimitri says vaguely, standing up. “Um… Thank you.”

“What?” he hears Rodrigue say, confused, and Sylvain shrugs and heads off.

Dimitri moves to stand in the door, still hidden from Felix’s bed by the curtain. Hovers there for a moment.

_What do you want?_ he asks.

_Why don’t you go in and ask me_ , snips Felix.

Dimitri doesn’t move.

_Tell me how to deserve you_ , he says.

_You know._

_Tell me._

Felix doesn’t speak.

_Tell me!_

“Hey,” says a voice behind the curtain. “Are you gonna stand there forever? I can _see_ you, you know.”

* * *

**then.**

“Rodrigue keeps hounding me about college,” Felix mumbles a little fuzzily, head resting on Dimitri’s belly. He gets shifted around when Dimitri laughs. “Oi…”

“Sorry,” says Dimitri, craning his neck up to smile down at Felix. They’re lying on the carpet of Dimitri’s bedroom, staring at the ceiling. It’s 2AM. Both had soundly lost the fight for whose turn it was to give up the bed. Felix had abandoned his side of the carpet within minutes, preferring to use Dimitri as a pillow.

“What’s your plan,” Felix asks, still looking at the ceiling. “Are you going to college?”

“Maybe,” says Dimitri. “Probably. I haven’t decided yet.”

He can tell Felix is frowning without looking. “You don’t sound concerned.”

“I’m not,” says Dimitri. He feels around for Felix’s hand, resting on his own chest, and grabs it. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“You’re not worried about your own future?” Felix asks.

“What is there to be worried about?” Dimitri laughs, displacing Felix again. He runs a thumb over Felix’s wrist. “No matter what, my best friend will be with me. We can take on anything!”

“You’re a sentimental idiot,” Felix tells him, but tightens his grip on Dimitri’s hand. “That’s not a plan.”

“Ah, you’re the brains of the outfit,” Dimitri says, dropping his head back on his pillow. “I’ll leave it to you.”

Felix jabs him in the ribs and he yelps, jolting away and dislodging Felix for real.

“You _will_ be with me,” Dimitri says, once Felix has squirmed back around to rest his head on Dimitri’s chest with a disgruntled noise. “Won’t you?”

“Of course I will,” Felix mutters, not looking at him. “Where else would I be?”

“What would I do without you!”

“Perish,” says Felix, making Dimitri huff with laughter. He shifts. “And… the same of you?”

“Of course, Felix!” Dimitri says, eyes wide. “Why would I ever leave your side?”

* * *

**now.**

Dimitri gently pushes the curtain aside.

Felix does look fine. There’s a little bandage on the side of his head, and he looks _incredibly_ grumpy, but otherwise—fine. Whole. Unharmed.

“How do you feel?” Dimitri asks tentatively.

“Great,” Felix mutters. “Some fucking idiot flung me off my bike. I’m having the time of my life.”

He’s not looking at Dimitri, so Dimitri takes a seat in the chair closest to him. Felix is sitting up in bed, phone lying on the side table. It’s buzzing.

“Annette,” Felix says, before Dimitri can ask. “I told her I’m fine. She’s just sending articles about—about—I don’t even know.”

Dimitri smiles despite himself. “Re-learning how to read after a brain injury,” he suggests softly.

Felix snorts. “Numbers one through ten.”

“How to write your name.”

Felix chances a half-glance at him. “Why’d you come,” he says.

“Of course I came,” says Dimitri. He hesitates. “Sylvain—Sylvain told me you asked for me.”

That was the wrong move. Felix flushes and looks furiously away again. “Well, you can go, then,” he says. “I don’t need you ogling me sadly until I can get the hell out of here.”

“I didn’t come because you asked,” Dimitri says hurriedly, anxious to explain himself. “I—I came when Glenn said you got hurt. Sylvain didn’t tell me that you—didn’t tell me that until I got here.”

Felix doesn’t look back, but his head turns a fraction.

“I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me,” Dimitri adds in a low voice. “But I—I had to come.”

Felix shifts. “Don’t,” he orders.

“What?”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Felix says. “Like you don’t have a right to be here, or something. It pisses me off. You’re occupying space whether you like it or not. Don’t waste it fluttering.”

Dimitri blinks once, then sags. “You’ve really grown, Felix,” he says.

“What do you sound so sad about?”

_That we didn’t grow up together_ , Dimitri tells the Felix in his head.

_Then tell me so._

“Why are you staring at me,” says Felix.

_Tell me._

“I missed you,” Dimitri says, at last. “I missed out on so many years with you. I’m… I’m so sorry, Felix.”

Felix finally looks around.

“I talked to Glenn,” says Dimitri, when it becomes apparent that Felix isn’t going to do much more than watch him. “And I—I’ve been—”

“Stop,” says Felix, so Dimitri does, and looks at him. Felix’s eyes are clear. “I don’t need to hear all your self-reflections.” He hesitates. “As long as you got there.”

“I did,” Dimitri says at once. “Er—by ‘there’, you mean…”

Felix ignores him. He looks at his hands. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “Too, I mean. I’m sorry I—I was harsh. I said—hurtful things. I was insensitive.”

“No, Felix, you have nothing to apologise for.”

“I was angry,” Felix says to his hands. “And—and hurt, I guess, but I shouldn’t have—sorry. I crossed a line.”

“Please,” says Dimitri, a bit desperately. He leans forward. “Please let me apologise properly before you—”

“I don’t need you to,” Felix interrupts. “I don’t want your apology. It’s fine. I know. I—you sound different.”

“Do I?” Dimitri asks.

Felix doesn’t talk. His hand is resting on his leg. Unthinking, Dimitri takes it.

Felix glances at him again.

“I was so focused on what I owed you,” Dimitri says, staring determinedly at their hands. Felix’s is calloused, slender fingers fitting neatly into Dimitri’s. “On what I—I deserved. I forgot what it meant to be us. What that meant to me. And I forgot how to—how to—”

“Dimitri.”

“I forgot you,” Dimitri whispers. “What you must have wanted from me, or needed. It took thinking I might lose you for real to realise that I hadn’t yet—that it wasn’t too late, and you were still—I’ve been selfish, and foolish, and blind, Felix, and I’m so sorry.”

“Enough self-flagellating,” Felix says. “Do you think _that’s_ what I want from you?”

“I…”

Felix nudges him. “Just tell me it’s not going to take getting hit by a bus to snap you out of it every time you start being a fucking idiot.”

“A _bus_?” Dimitri says, alarmed, but Felix says grumpily, “It was an SUV, I’m exaggerating.”

Dimitri sags, but only slightly. “I was scared for you,” he admits.

“I know,” says Felix. “You always worry too much.”

“If it woke me up, I won’t complain,” Dimitri murmurs.

“Glad to know _someone’s_ happy about this,” Felix mutters, gesturing to himself. “I can’t get back to training for at least a week.”

“I’m… almost certain it’s longer than that.”

“I missed you too,” Felix says, in a slight rush, like if he doesn’t say it now then he won’t. “I missed you—a lot. I’m—I just—it’s like you haven’t really talked to me since that day. I really wanted you to.” He suddenly sounds very small. “It’s stupid.”

“It’s not.”

“It’s like you didn’t even see me,” says Felix. “Like every time you looked at me you were seeing a ghost. I’m still here. I’ve always been here.”

“I know,” says Dimitri. “Now I know. I was—I’ll never look away again, I promise, Felix. I—”

“Enough,” Felix says roughly. “I mean it. I’ve said my piece. If I have to listen to you stammering through your guilt again I’ll throw you out myself.”

Dimitri laughs. His hand is still curled around Felix’s.

Felix glances down at their joined fingers, then up into Dimitri’s eyes for a fleeting moment before letting his gaze flit away again. Felix has never enjoyed prolonged eye contact. But whatever he sees must satisfy him, because he says, “The pier.”

“Hm?”

“You mentioned it the other night,” Felix says. Dimitri tenses. “I wasn’t sure if you even remembered.”

“Oh,” says Dimitri. “Of course I do. How could I forget?”

Felix gives him a dubious look. Then he says, quietly, “I decided.”

“What?”

“I decided. You can stop waiting. I’ve been sure for years.”

It takes Dimitri a moment to process Felix’s meaning. There’s a slow blush spreading across Felix’s nose and ears.

It clicks into place. “O-oh,” Dimitri says stupidly, unable to track what’s going on in his mind at all. “Oh. Felix.”

Reddening further, Felix adds, “Unless—unless you don’t—”

Dimitri kisses him. Tries to kiss him. His nose bumps against Felix’s and then Felix hisses when Dimitri’s hand, gone to cradle his head, brushes against a bandage. Dimitri pulls away at once. “Sorry!”

“You are a fucking wreck,” Felix grumbles, rubbing his nose.

“Sorry,” Dimitri says again, unable to stop smiling despite himself. “I’m sorry. I—was that inappropriate? I’m sorry. It’s too soon. It was impulsive. I know we’ve only just reconciled, and I—there are many other considerations to—t-to consider, and perhaps we ought to slow—”

“I just _said_ you can stop waiting,” Felix growls, and yanks at Dimitri’s hair to tug him close again.

* * *

_What does he mean to you_ , Byleth will ask him next time, and he will say, _Everything._

* * *

“You told me to wait for you,” Dimitri murmurs many hours later, chin resting on Felix’s bed from where he’s still sat on the plastic bedside chair. “But I made you wait for me, instead. All these years, while I forgot what we were.”

“It’s fine,” Felix says sleepily, idly running fingers through Dimitri’s hair. “We can make up the time.”

“Perhaps we’ve started to.”

It’s late evening and visiting hours will be over soon—Dimitri had sat awkwardly by while Felix yowled and scratched to be released early, but had finally relented to a night of observation and discharge in the morning. Dimitri has been here for hours already, seeing Ingrid’s arrival and departure in the later afternoon, leaving only once when Felix demanded he go fetch a burger from the cafeteria or ‘somewhere that makes real food’ with a disgusted look at his sandwich. Just talking. Plenty had built up for them to catch up on.

“Be my date to Glenn’s wedding,” Felix says suddenly. “And make sure you look better than him. He says I’m not allowed to.”

Dimitri laughs. “How will you manage that?” he teases. “You’ll have to show up in board shorts.”

Felix grins. “A t-shirt tuxedo.”

“Clip-on bow tie.”

“Ugh,” says Felix, “I will _never_ wear a bow tie.”

“I think you would look sweet,” says Dimitri.

“Well, that’s the kiss of death.”

Dimitri laughs again.

“You can go home,” Felix murmurs. “They’ll come kick you out in a minute, anyway.”

“Let them try,” says Dimitri, resting his cheek on Felix’s leg and looking happily up at him. “I’ll hide under the bed.”

“Glue yourself to the bedpost.”

“To the chair!”

“They’ll carry you out still attached to it,” snorts Felix, and Dimitri buries his laughter in Felix’s leg. “Seriously, get out. I’m tired.”

“Ha. Okay.” Dimitri nudges his head against Felix’s hand, still tangled in his hair. He hesitates. “Felix…”

Felix threads his fingers through Dimitri’s hair one more time before letting go. “You’ll come back this time,” he says.

“I will,” says Dimitri.

“Well, not here. This is a hospital. I’m getting out of here as soon as possible.”

“Of course,” Dimitri smiles.

“But to me,” says Felix. “Right? …Dima?”

Dimitri catches Felix’s hand and kisses it, which makes him splutter. “Always,” he says firmly. “I promise.”

Felix waves him off, a little pink. “Get out, then.” He allows a little smile to curve his lips as he looks up at Dimitri. “It’ll be fine. We have time.”

“We’ll make time,” Dimitri says.

* * *

> **Dimitri:** Glenn and Ingrid—please accept my sincere congratulations on your engagement. I hope you will have a truly happy life together, as you deserve! I am sorry that it took me so long to say as much, but I promise to be there for you whenever you have need of me, from now on. Please consider this my RSVP to your wedding ceremony. Felix and I will be attending together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure, unexpected life events got in the way and I ended up having to write this entire chapter in less than a week in a frantic rush up to the deadline. Hope that doesn't show much. :')
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it...!!
> 
> You can RT this fic [here](https://twitter.com/corviiid/status/1209625142571106305)! <3


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